Spring is here and summer is just around the corner. Are you dreading mowing the lawn? Robot lawn mowers have been around for some time now, and almost all of them operate the same way. However, in the Spring of 2009 we all witnessed the latest revelation in lawn mowing technology with the Spyder LB1200. The Spyder LB1200 is a robot lawn mower designed for people looking to improve the quality of their life by eliminating the more menial task of mowing the grass, and also in setting up a robotic lawn mower.

What are the highlights?

The Spyder is a sleek looking machine; forest green, with two handles on the top to better grasp the mower and carry it around (not that it’s heavy though). This electric mower produces very little noise and covers a lot of ground in little time. It’s silent and green! In order to reduce the price as low as possible, the robot does not have a docking station, but rather a unique charging cord which has you press a lead onto each of the front two wheels to charge the robot.

What is so great about this lawn mower?

Unlike almost all other robotic lawn mowers, the Spyder LB1200 doesn’t require a perimeter wire. The mower relies on obstacles found on the property such as; rocks, trees, fences, concrete and asphalt, and others. The mower uses specially patented sensors to manage the mowing action; once the mower reaches a zone containing dry lawn or asphalt, it turns away and continues its course through uncut lawn. It will only cut your good grass – nothing else! The Spyder robot mower provides quality lawn mowing performance and merges simplicity with safety. This is the first robotic lawn mower of its kind to not require any setup whatsoever.

How to operate the Spyder LB1200?

The Spyder package includes the mower, a rechargeable lithium battery, a charging cable and the user’s manual. Once the robot is fully charged, all you need to do is grasp the two handles on the top of the robot lawn mower to settle it on your lawn, and press the “On” button on the top. As easy as 1-2-3.

What are the Spyder’s benefits and drawbacks?

The Spyder LB1200 is one of the simplest robots you’ll ever get. There is no time consuming installation; no wires to install around the perimeter of your property and no programming. It can manage slopes up to 27 degrees with its 4 wheel drive. The 18 pound (a little over 8 kilos) mower will perform on yards up to 5500 square feet. Bear in mind that this lawn mower does not have cliff sensors nor does it have a perimeter wire. If your property has a beautiful pond, creek, river or simply no obstacle to limit the mowers action, you might want to pass up on the Spyder LB1200 since it doesn’t come with swimming aids. You will find that other Lawnbott robot lawn mower models might better meet your needs. A final word The Spyder LB1200 is definitely a great and efficient product for busy home owner and for people simply wanting ot take full advantage of great summer weather. At around 1 000$, the Spyder is a smart choice when looking at some of the traditional lawn mowers out there starting at 600-700$ to a few thousand dollars. Oh, and labor is not included!

For more information on the Lawnbott Spyder LB1200 robot mower visit our product page

The RobotShop tech team released a new video for their Ultimate Challenge.

If you were at all curious how the Neato XV-11 performed in the RobotShop Ultimate Challenge, then this post is for you. RobotShop has done the tests, compiled the results, and put it all together for you. The  findings may (or may not) surprise you. For anyone thinking of buying a robot vacuum cleaner, you should take a look. You can check out how we scored the robot and get the results broken down for Neato, challenge by challenge. But first, let’s actually see some of these tests.

As always, watch till the end in order to see some robot destruction and a Roomba 780 trying to make food.

Via RobotShop Blog.

The RobotShop Ultimate Challenge is moving along quickly now; the Roomba 500 series has completed all the tests and its final score is now available. If you recall, the robot vacuums are being scored by 15 different performance tests: how well they pick up debris, how fast they clean, how loud they are, etc. With the Roomba 500 series’ results now in, you’re going to have some cold hard facts to back up your purchase decision.

Check out the video below explaining the results and demonstrating the tests. Watch until the end to see some rather brutal (and  funny) tests that  seem to have been rejected.

I was recently offered the chance to review Microbric’s Viper Robotics Development Kit. I always love to try out new robot kits and see what’s on the market, so I jumped at the chance. Prior to Microbric contacting me, I had heard some about the kits. You may have read a prior review of the kit from our pals at robots.net, Sprocket’s Slog, or at Robots Dreams. It seemed like a unique concept and I was eager to see if it played out in reality.

Microbric, based in Australia, promptly shipped me a package containing the Viper kit along with the three main add-on kits: wheel kit, sumo kit, and line tracker kit.

The concept of ‘modules’ are the unique feature of this kit. They are the basic building blocks of a set. Each module is a self-contained unit with at least three connectors on a side, which provide power, ground, and signal to the main motherboard. This creates a modular system of construction that doesn’t require any extra wires or soldering. The modules are attached to each other, or the motherboard, via a ‘bric’. Each bric is a small nylon connector that contains three nuts. Three small screws are threaded into the nuts and connect the modules together. The screws form the electrical contacts between the modules.

To keep users from incorrectly wiring the modules together, each bric is keyed to allow it to be attached in only one way, and each module is marked to indicate which holes to align.

Kit Contents

• Each kit comes with a number of pieces, including

• 2 gear motors, with controllers

• IR sensor module

• 2 bump sensor modules

• 1 button module

• 1 switch module

• 2 led modules

• IR remote control

• 20+ brics

• screw driver

• foam wheels

• battery holders

• misc. connectors and pieces

• Basic Atom motherboard

The kit comes with a nice plastic container that can be used to store the parts. This is much like the original Mindstorms box and is great for keeping track of small parts.

A little bit of assembly is required in order to get started. The manual guides you through this process. This includes placing the small nuts into the brics (which can be tedious), attaching the battery holder to the motherboard, and detaching the various parts from their PCB holders.

The modules, motherboard, and connector pieces are high quality PCBs.

I had a bit of trouble assembling my first robot. It was often difficult to position the screws into the holes, and the nuts tended to fall out of the brics as I was trying to attach things. I imagine that after use the nuts will work themselves tightly into the nylon brics and not fall out as often. Perhaps a little dab of glue between the nuts and brics would also help.

I was also sometimes confused when trying to connect modules and making sure that they were facing the right direction. The keying on the brics is very slight and takes a bit of close examination to determine which side to place on which module. Some sort of indication molded into the bric’s plastic would probably help this.

The wheels form-fit nicely on the shafts of the motors and are easily removed if necessary. The motors are high quality and provide a decent amount of torque. I believe they are, or are very similar, to the GM11 gear motors from Solarbotics. However, keep in mind that Microbrics motor modules also contain a controller. A single line of code (a serial out command) is all that is required to command the motors at a certain speed and direction.

The programming environment for the Viper kit is the standard IDE from Basic Micro for their Basic Atom line of products. The Viper motherboard contains an OEM version of the microcontroller along with power regulation. The Basic Atom is programmed with Visual Basic syntax and is quite simple and powerful. It has hardware interrupts, serial outputs, servo control, and many other features. It should be noted that the Viper motherboard only brings out 16 I/O lines which eliminates the use of the extra A/D inputs.

Microbric also has several add-on kits, including an extra wheel and motor pack, a sumo robot pack, and a line following sensor pack. These kits are pictured below.

To be on the honest side there are some downsides to the Viper kit. For starters, the kit doesn’t come with a printed manual. This is not such an issue now-a-days with ink jet printers, but I always appreciate having something in paper to reference.

Secondly, and far more damaging, is the fact that the motherboard runs on triple A (AAA) batteries, and not double A’s. Alkaline AAA’s generally have a significantly smaller capacity than AA’s (1.1 Ah, compared to 2.8Ah). In addition, it’s difficult to find rechargeable triple A batteries. Microbric would do well to create an add-on pack for different power sources. Perhaps even a lithium polymer battery addition. It would also be nice to have a module that would allow the motherboard to be powered off of a wall transformer.

There are a few other minor complains, like how it’s easy to cut yourself when initially removing the parts from their PCB holders. It can also be sometimes difficult to maneuver your fingers in order to attach certain brics, especially when building upwards. I had to use the screw driver a few times in order to lever a piece into place.

Aside from these minor complains the Microbric Viper Robotics Development Kit is a sound platform for experimenting with robotics. It takes all the difficult out of correctly wiring parts and eliminates the danger of destroying delicate electronics by connecting them improperly. The Basic Atom is a good chip that can be easily programmed and is powerful.

The kit retails for about $140 USD (depending on the exchange rate). And can be shipped internationally. They even have a compact package for international shipping. The price of kit makes it well worth the purchase. $140 is a steal for what you get.

You can find more information about the kit here, and purchasing information here.

Thanks to Josh Richards from Microbric for letting us review the kit.

Yesterday I received a preview copy of Robot Magazine’s "premier issue." After having seen it in very rough form during RoboNexus, I have to say that the actual print version is even more impressive. For those of you familiar with RC Driver or Fly RC, Robot Magazine will be from the same publisher, Maplegate Media, and have the same high-quality, thick paper, and rugged construction of the other magazines. Tom Atwood is also the editor of Robot Magazine.

 

The magazine’s purpose is described in the opening comments from the Editor, Tom Atwood. He writes,

 

Robot magazine’s coverage is multi-tiered. We will focus on hobby robots that come ready-to-run and on complete robot kits such as the emerging Robo-One humanoid robots … We will cover homebuilt robot projects, techno hacks and the latest plug & play accessories and gear.

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